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People who argue for argument’s sake are like people who jog on Christmas Day. They’re trying to impress us but just end up being annoying. Worse still are people who try to argue themselves into a relationship through judicious reasoning and persuasion. I knew a guy once, a sort-of friend, who wanted to be more than friends, and I did not. That didn’t deter him in the slightest. He proceeded to present a very solid case for why he and I should be boyfriend and girlfriend. It was methodical and organized. He had main points (“We have shared interests”), with subheadings (“see: movies, snowboarding, couscous”). When that didn’t work, he tried to back me into a corner by telling me I wasn’t being “open” or was “afraid.” Finally, he interrogated me: “Why not?
“Can you think of any reason why not?”
No, psycho, I have no good reason why we shouldn’t date, except for the fact that I don’t want to.
They say that matters of the heart are tricky, but I believe such things are deceptively simple. You like someone or you don’t. You have chemistry or you don’t. You cannot be convinced by a convincing argument to fall in love. When asked why you love someone, the reasons you give are simply superficial explanations to appease whoever asked. Love just happens.
Things can get sticky when one person sees the possibility of a relationship because all the right reasons are there, and the other does not. Rational people with some self-respect will usually back off after they’ve been turned down. But crazy people with stalker tendencies and low self-esteem will persist and hold on like a Rottweiler with a small animal between its teeth.
My friend is currently fielding a stalker-in-training who is under the impression that she and he would be too cute for words. At first he really tried to like her, because it seemed like they would be good together. But try as he might, he just wasn’t into her, no matter how much they may have made sense. Besides, he knew that even if he did agree to date her, it would be a disturbingly imbalanced relationship due to the towering pedestal she’d placed him on. But, like a trouper, the girl just won’t quit. She’s keeping at him to this day, listing the reasons, asking him why, why, why not, and in doing so obliterating any chance she might have had with him.
These persistent types don’t seem to get that they’d have a better shot at hooking their crush if they brushed their shoulders off and moved on. That’s when the object of their affection will see them walking away and be all, “Hey, wait, why don’t you like me any more? Now that you don’t like me you’re suddenly really hot.” Proving that you’re just fine without someone is much hotter than insisting that you’re incomplete without them.
Being honest about the way you feel and going after what you want are good and admirable personal qualities. Emotionally vomiting all over someone and encroaching on their personal space are irritating and threatening personal qualities.
Do not attempt to argue someone into being your special someone. Just as reason and logic are lost on militant Republicans, so, too, are they lost in matters of the heart.
